Van Beynen on poverty

Let’s call it the John Minto solution. First, every family with less than a certain income will be brought up to a minimum stipend based on what is required for the family to live comfortably in their location.

If they can’t find good quality accommodation at a reasonable price, maybe because they have a bad credit record or a record of smashing up their previous flats, then the state will provide them with a nice place to live in a nice street at a modest rent.

If they have harmful addictions, those will receive concentrated and long term attention. However long it takes. Tendencies towards crime and violence will be met with counselling and psychiatric help. Any health, including mental health, issues will receive the best specialist care and they will receive 24hr life coaching and advice from trained support staff. Children will receive extra tuition and any proclivities towards anti-social behaviour will be handled at a best practice standard.

Nirvana.

Cost? Not relevant.

You might need a top tax rate of 90% in the dollar, but hey.

Meanwhile back in the real world, inhabited by people like Minister of Police Judith Collins, things are a bit different. This week she blamed bad parenting as a major factor in crime.

Of course the media chased down all the hand wringers and bleeding hearts, who have never had to make a hard decision about tax payer dollars, to get the predictable reproof.

It’s hard to know where the condemnation was going but it seemed to suggest that parenting wasn’t much of factor in child poverty which wasn’t what Collins was saying at all.

Just to recap.

At the Police Association conference in Wellington, Collins was asked what the Government was doing about child poverty because a lot of gang members came from poor backgrounds.

Judith Collins said money was available for those that needed it and money was not the only the problem.

“It’s not that, it’s people who don’t look after their children, that’s the problem.

“And they can’t look after their children in many cases because they don’t know how to look after their children or even think they should look after their children.

“I see a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring.”

I don’t need to do any of National’s ceaseless polling to know what middle New Zealand thinks of that because it’s obvious. Middle New Zealand is going to agree with Collins.

I loathe smug, silver-spoon, born-to-rule National Party people as much as I despise the bleeding heart, champagne socialist brigade but Collins was on the button when she said lack of money wasn’t the real cause of crime.

Talk to any cop or social worker and you will hear that bad parenting is the main reason for delinquency and youth crime.

Sadly this is true.

Lots of people in New Zealand are hard-up. They might be going from benefit day to benefit day or pay packet to pay packet, but that doesn’t mean their children go to school without a lunch and don’t get care and affection.

All the longitudinal studies show some people are predisposed to not getting along in their communities. In other words some are born awful but most achieve awfulness through their upbringing. Add a couple of ingredients like poor parenting, a chaotic household, moving around a lot and Mum having lots of boyfriends and you have the recipe for disaster.

That’s not to say lack of money has no influence on the already dysfunctional family. It will cause stress and stress causes some people to go off the rails.

But to attack Collins for stating the bleeding obvious is to absolve people of responsibility and divert attention from the real problem.

Of course there will be hard-up families with both parents working hard and not smoking or drinking and going to church on Sundays. There’s probably about two of them in the whole country. And don’t forget they get Working for Families benefits and accommodation supplements. Their children get free education, no-one is going to charge them for hospital visits and medical treatment if required and they might be eligible for other benefits as well.

They might be poor compared to a wealthy doctor living in Remuera in Auckland but on a world poverty scale they are in clover.

In the last year we spent $53 billion assisting poorer families with welfare, and providing free healthcare and education.

MGT

I think that we’re in rare agreement on this one. The subsidies I’ve mentioned have created a structural problem that is now very hard to reverse, and politically won’t happen in a hurry. Key called WFF communism by stealth or similar, but hasn’t done anything to change it.

artemisia

If there is no accommodation supplement, households would have to find housing they could afford on their income. ‘Twas ever thus. With the accom supplement, households are able to upgrade their accommodation. How exactly is that subsidising landlords?

If employment income is not topped up with WFF some employers would for sure close down, unless they can hire cheaper workers. That would be really helpful for the laid off workers.

Simon

GoVege

So long as those young women are good mums, they don’t need any other employment skills.
The real problem is the absent fathers.
We have thousands of young males in this country who think they can impregnate as many females as they like and never make any attempt to be a dad to their offspring , let alone support them.
No matter what faults a man has, so long as he sticks around and makes an attempt to father his kids, they’ll probably turn out OK.
Un-fathered kids, particularly boys, are going to bankrupt this country.

Bosses don’t have to give workers pay rises any longer when you have nearly all family households in nz receiving ‘wff top ups’ from the govt — and most of these type of govt benefits are now also inflation adjusted – or adjusted by parliament every few years .

GoVege

It’s not that simple, cmm.
WFF was a godsend when we had 4 teenagers to feed, clothe and educate.
Before that, we had to keep adding to the mortgage just to live modestly.
(Thankfully we had a mortgage to add to.)
Now our kids are grown up, have good careers and paying taxes.
The problem is not WFF or accommodation supplement.
The problem is people who don’t bother to care for their kids and only have them for the income they bring in.

radvad

“And don’t forget they get Working for Families benefits and accommodation supplements. Their children get free education, no-one is going to charge them for hospital visits and medical treatment if required and they might be eligible for other benefits as well.”

Not once have I heard any gratitude from beneficiaries or their advocates. Instead all we get is whinging and demanding. A large part of the problem are those who have made a career out of alleged poverty. The last thing they want is a permanent solution as the gravy train would soon dry up.

We could take all these children from their poverty stricken lives and put them in very good boarding schools. They would be well fed, well clothed and very well educated – using all the money from hopeless beneficiaries who breed for the money. It may put them off breeding and society would be a whole lot better. Dilworth school is my case in point, it has turned out wonderful young men who grow up with a great education, respect for others and a great future ahead of them. To me that’s the best choice we have left. The parents can fend for themselves or have free accommodation in a nearby prison.

Unity

103PapPap

One major problem we face is that technology that used to once be optional, is now an essential.
So everyone (especially kids above a certain age) has to have a smartphone with unlimited text and data, every house needs a big screen TV and Sky, the fridge needs boxes of Lion Red and Woodies, the front of the fridge has the address of the local tinny house, and Mum’s boyfriends don’t care that the kids aren’t doing their homework.
No wonder there is no money for items such as shoes, food and winter clothes.

Northland Wahine

Simon, it isn’t just the uneducated that are paid to breed. There are plenty of single mums with a good education and continue to further their education while on benefit. The problem is there a lack of parental responsibility across the board.

Absent fathers. It doesn’t matter wether or not they know they’ve impregnated a woman, it wouldn’t happen if they used precautions.

Absent mothers. Yeah, there are apparently those too, go figure! See above!

Couples continuing to have more and more children while complaining about the cost of raising the ones that they have. Regardless if you’re on benefit or not, low income or not, if you need assistance to help pay for your rent, childcare, car repayments, food!, why would you even consider planning to have another child?

As a single working mum, I am very grateful for childcare assistance, especially during the school holidays. And because I had my youngest son when I was 43, (and totally unplanned) some could say my biological clock prevented me from having any more therefore I have no grounds to pass comment. But I think it is nothing short of parental negliance to continue making bad choices when your child’s welfare is at risk.

Unity

I totally agree with Judith Collins and you Northland Wahine. It is bad parenting and child neglect, not child poverty. If you can’t afford to have a child, you shouldn’t have one. Too many on a benefit have made the latter a lifestyle choice and they know they will receive even more money for every child they have. They are too stupid or uncaring to realise that it really costs money to have a child. The Government should make it that there will be no more benefit paid to a mother who has a child whilst on a benefit. I bet the number of children to these people would drop markedly.

Unity

We used to get Family Benefit so I guess WFF is a similar thing. What’s wrong with it? I still say, if you can’t afford to rear a child, you shouldn’t have one. Surely this is common sense. It’s like you don’t buy a new car if you can’t afford one, or something else. We got along very nicely thank you just living from payday to payday with a tiny bit left to spare each week, which I put in the bank to provide for the children’s clothes and shoes each summer and winter as they grew out of what they had. We didn’t have any luxuries or holidays but we were happy and got by and didn’t feel poverty stricken.

starboard

Key has no spine and is asleep at the wheel. Have said this many times. Third term stench and arrogance, happens every time, as usual we have no one of substance to turn to unless we count Winnie and NZF. Key should have been the one to turn things around, bring in major reform but no, he went running after Huluns supporters and chose exit left instead.

deadrightkev

Jack5

The “kids in poverty” bullshit campaign isn’t confined to NZ.

The Lefties are claiming nearly three million Australians live in “poverty”.

They define this as less than 50 per cent of he median income. Any statistician Kiwibloggerite may be able o tell us whether taking a median in incomes results in a negative skew, which means the mean average is lower than the median average. The poverty campaigners don’t bother with such precision in their press releases.

One interesting part of the report on Aussie “poverty” is that it says:

Those most at risk are children in single parent families, who are three times more likely to be living in poverty. Just over 40 per cent of children being raised by a single parent live below the poverty line.

The Lefties behind the “poverty” campaign are, in general, the same people who have pushed the liberal trends that indirectly or directly have put vast pressure on a great stabiliser in society – heterosexual, marriage-based families.

Dave Stringer

The number one parenting problem in New Zealand is the lack of disciplinary options available to the parent. While 5 minutes in TimeOut works on a 5 year old, 5 hours does nothing to the teenager. The reality for most children is that from about 7 years old they get the message that there’s no real consequence for bad behaviour, and therein is the beginning of the end, for them and the next generation.
The British Nanny approach to child behaviour is fine, if you can afford a full time British Nanny. For the rest of us, a clout around the ear, or a ruler over the knuckles, worked quite well. Unfortunately for today’s parents and teachers, such simple lessons in unacceptable behaviour are not available- thanks in the main to a group of dogooders who never had to raise or teach children.

Gabby

Dave Stringer

Pretty good by my standards.
4 well adjusted adult children
A happy life, surrounded by children and grandchildren who love, like and respect each other
A good pension
No grudges against my parents for the way I was raised or regrets for the way I raised my family.

Here’s the rub though.
The society I grew up in had evolved it’s mores over many generations. We delivered the world you live in. Compare the vandalism, petty crime, crime against people and crime against society statistics of the last decade with that of 1946-1956, and to make it equitable, do the comparison on a ‘per capita’ basis, ’cause there were far fewer of us than here today. If the result doesn’t give you food for thought, I wish you a safe and happy life.

Dave Stringer

GoVege

Maybe it’s a matter of degree, Dave.
That’s the trouble with discipline/ violence.
One man’s “smack” is another man’s bash.
I just know so many kids who were so badly “disciplined”, they are on booze and drugs, or giving their own kids black eyes.

kowtow

dogooders who never had to raise or teach children.

Nah they are commies who have raised their own , beat them like everyone else did , but now want to undermine society using the latest tactics, attack the family, and it’s working. Huge numbers of households are dysfunctional and those that aren’t have been constrained by the new ‘progressivism”.

GoVege

The usual reason kids end up in gangs is because they are pushed out of home due to 1) lack of space,due to the size of the family, and 2) becoming more expensive as teenagers.
They are often semi-literate (at best) from years of mum using them to mind the younger cash cows while mum is out partying.
I’ve met heaps of these mothers.
Last week I met a 30 year old mum of 10, and her brother who was a dad of 9.
Believe me, they are not “caring” for all these kids.
Some will be stashed away in garages, often at friends’ and relatives’ places.
They just collect the money for them.
Eventually in their mid-teens the boys will graduate to a gang-pad and the girls to their own career on the DPB.